More than six in 10 teachers believe that parents are securing special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) diagnoses for their children to give them an advantage in exams – and as a secondary school teacher of almost a decade, I’d argue that this is just one more example of those with wealth and privilege gaming a system that is failing to deliver for those who need it most.
Currently, pupils with a range of extra needs, from dyslexia to anxiety, can receive up to 25 per cent additional time in an exam – as well as other access arrangements like being able to take formal exams in the classroom instead of the hall, or using a device to type rather than handwriting responses.
Securing this support for pupils who truly need it is often an onerous task that requires the input of multiple parties, including teachers, parents, the local council and medical professionals. But here’s the thing: whilst more teachers than ever think that pupils are being too freely diagnosed, simultaneously, more children than ever are also falling through the cracks.
Every year, teachers like me encounter countless students who clearly need extra support but don’t get it, whether that’s because of the bureaucracy involved in changing schools too close to exam years or because they don’t have parents able or willing to advocate effectively on their behalf.
Any teacher will tell you stories of young people who could barely function all year in the classroom – whether being unable to write legibly by themselves, sit still for long periods of time, or understand written instructions without verbal support – but who were forced to fend for themselves come exam season because no formal diagnosis was secured in time.
I have known children whose loose grasp of English as their second language obscured serious additional needs until it was too late to secure formal support, and those whose families are so busy trying to make ends meet that jumping through the legal and medical loopholes required was simply not a priority.
At the same time, I see parents armed with enough disposable income, free time and inside knowledge take this broken system and make it work for their children – even if the driving motivation is exam advantage rather than genuine access and inclusion.
In recent years, I have seen an uptick in the number of wealthier families securing private diagnoses for conditions like anxiety, dyslexia, autism and ADHD. Mostly, their children have never had any trouble functioning in the classroom or performing academically, and their diagnosis almost always comes as a total surprise to school staff.
I have even been approached at parents’ evenings by those enquiring about what would qualify their child for extra time in an exam, only to then contact the school later with a privately obtained diagnosis for just such a condition. And only a few days ago, a friend of mine who teaches in an affluent area of London told me about a whole group of classmates whose parents provided the school with anxiety diagnoses from the same private clinic within days of each other.
square PRIVATE SCHOOLS I'm a private school teacher - the parents treat me like I'm their employee
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Usually, underfunded and overstretched though they are, schools will seek to intervene when teachers suspect a student might have some underlying, undiagnosed needs. But my colleagues and I are seeing more and more parents providing diagnoses that are entirely contradictory with how the pupil presents in the classroom.
Bound as we are by the need for formal evidence or opinion, this means that we are often giving some of the highest performing pupils 25 per cent extra time in exams, while some of those who can barely access the paper at all get none of the help they need.
This isn’t just about the age-old story of the rich abusing their privilege. I have seen firsthand how tough young people with social and emotional needs and disabilities have it in the education system. On a daily basis, entire families are being broken from the process of trying to support their SEND children where the system is failing. The most disadvantaged young people might wait years for a diagnosis of conditions like autism or ADHD, and often any formal opinion they do receive comes too late.
SEND pupils are twice as likely to be persistently absent from school. Little wonder, when we consider how many children every day we are forcing into an environment that they just cannot cope with. Without adequate training or resources, teachers are going above and beyond to plug the gaps and make learning accessible, despite knowing that many of our pupils need specialist help that we cannot provide.
No doubt there will be those who read about the overdiagnosis of SEND within schools and consider it evidence of a woke-snowflake generation all too eager to label themselves anxious or autistic. But that’s not the story here.
We are fast reaching a stage where the SEND system is only navigable to those with privilege, and rather than addressing disadvantage, it is actively embedding it. All children who need additional support deserve to be given the chance to flourish – not just those who happen to have wealthy parents.
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